As Long as We Complete the Mission
by Wind-in-the-Sage
Summary: ... Hogan need never know how. Or so Newkirk tells himself. He needs to keep his sanity until he and Carter can get the coordinates and prevent a sergeant's call, despite everything from tripping hazards to compromising hofbrau employees to criminally poor architects. And really, thought Newkirk, why were there so many coats in the closet they had to handle a jury-rigged bomb in?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I've held this one back awhile, but I really enjoyed writing it. It'll only be two chapters. Enjoy!

* * *

Hogan knew his men weren't telling the truth. Their body language radiated dishonesty, but also nervousness and embarrassment. No, they weren't telling the truth... but what other explanation could there possibly be?

~~HH~~

Crunch.

"_What_ was that?" Newkirk asked in a dangerous voice, although to anyone else in the hofbrau, it would appear that the German sergeant was simply asking his friend how work was going at the cannon factory.

"I—" Carter looked across the table at the piercing English gaze. "Broke the camera."

Newkirk blinked a few times. "You...what?"

"Um." Carter was getting more nervous under that glare. "I dropped it out of my pocket, and I moved to pick it up, and I'm pretty sure I just cracked the lens."

Newkirk pulled a pen out of his pocket, never taking his eyes off Carter, and smiled easily. "I'll get it," he said. He dropped the pen clumsily, it rolled off the table, and he pushed out his chair and bent to retrieve it off the ground. He took the opportunity to curse in whatever language he pleased while he secreted away the crushed camera and took a few moments to get the pen. This mission was already getting difficult after Carter spilled all of the fuel from his bomb on the way here and they had to make a rapid pitstop at the cave they used as an emergency hiding spot to change Carter into non-gasoline-soaked civvies. Now the camera they were going to use to photograph the major's plans was also out of commission. Newkirk pasted a smile on his face and straightened back up.

Carter's face needed revised. "Carter, don't look so guilty. The Gestapo are on the watch for people guilty of things, right?"

"Oh, right." Carter traded it out for a nervous smile, which was better.

"Got a plan B?" Newkirk asked.

"Um, we could just look at the plans and remember the important stuff?"

Newkirk thought about it. The major, due any minute, was handing plans off to a sergeant informing him what to tell the pilots that the major would be sending out tomorrow. The sergeant would inform them of their destination while they were en route. All of this was according to the Underground, to whom this level of complexity and secrecy were to be attributed. The Germans obviously did not want knowledge of this transport's destination getting out to the Allies. Hogan did. He had put LeBeau on the radio to cover for Kinch, who was creating an antenna that would be large enough to transmit their own message to those pilots, leading them into an Allied trap that could hopefully capture whatever precious cargo was being transported. They just needed to find out where to put the antenna, the transport being so high-altitude, and prevent the sergeant from placing his call, which is what Newkirk and Carter were in charge of. The camera was meant to get the location, the bomb was meant to blow a bridge and prevent the sergeant from making his transmission in time. Now, with the donation of some cooking oil from the kitchen, it was just going under the hood of his car, and the camera would have to be ditched for memory.

"That'll have to work," Newkirk said. "We just need a location, right?"

Before Carter could respond, the door opened and, looking over Newkirk's shoulder, he said, "I think that's our major."

The next few minutes went like clockwork—the only thing that did that night. This was well practiced. A few minutes after he sat down at the table next to them, Carter got up and politely asked if he was _the_ Major Lukvärm. He proudly identified himself. Worked every time. Then, Newkirk waited for his opportunity.

He watched the man closely, with a keen thief's eye. Which piece of clothing, which pocket, was he most conscious of in his movements? He was here on business, after all. When the door opened, he would look toward it, checking for the sergeant, and unconsciously, his hand would drift toward his coat in preparation.

Newkirk waited a while longer to confirm, and then made his move. Headed toward the bathroom, all it took was a trip on the trailing corner of the major's coat, plenty of apologies to his superior, a brushing off of the invisible dirt his boot had left on the coat, and Newkirk had the paper. He stepped into the men's room, locked the door behind him, and opened the correspondence. It took him a moment to translate. A few words in, he started over again. He got the same result. Jibberish. Struth, those Germans were thorough. It was in code.

He ground his teeth. Great. They had left their codebook at home. There was nothing left but to take the papers if they wanted information from them. And Hogan had stressed the importance of that transport. Oh, dear. Here we go again.

He flushed the toilet and washed his hands for the benefit of anyone listening outside the door, although he wanted to get out as soon as possible. He made it back to Carter, who was sipping a beer at the table, though he wasn't drinking quite enough to look convincing in his role. He sat down, put the paper in his coat on the chair to throw off anyone following his movements, and took a sincere drag of his own beer. "Plan C," he said quietly. "It's in code. I'm replacing it. You get your oil, and then we'll get out of here."

"Oh," Carter responded. "I'll get on that, don't worry. You think they've got some in the supply room?"

"I'm sure they do. Now, make an excuse."

Carter raised his voice a bit and said, in German, "I think I'll go take a leak, too."

Newkirk nodded acknowledgement, and as Carter got up from the table, he grabbed his beer and headed to the bar, on the lookout for any promising pieces of paper. A thorough look behind the bar revealed nothing passable as a war correspondence. He tried to remain casual while a disturbing ticking noise played in the back of his head. Just then, a cook came out of the kitchen, calling over one of the barmaids to interpret some handwriting on a very convenient-looking slip of paper. There had to be more where that came from. And they were saying something about a supplier. The owner had to have an office in the back somewhere where he could conduct the business of the place, sending letters to his suppliers. Newkirk took the direct route, and walked back like he owned the place, leaving the pay for the two beers under his mug.

Mumbling something unintelligible to the one person who passed him, too busy to take much notice of him anyway, Newkirk made it back to the office. It didn't take much to find. It was cramped back here. Between the top of the desk, the inside of the desk, and the filing cabinets, he found a few unimportant looking printed papers and compared them. He scrutinized them carefully, relying on his keen eye for detail, chose one, and folded it up, returning the others to their places and locking himself out of the cabinets. He picked his way back into the main room just in time to see a sergeant walk through the door. Crikey. He hurried over to the major, who looked over his shoulder and stood up to greet the sergeant. Newkirk didn't even have time to think. He snatched up the major's coat, slipped the paper in, and offered it to him. "Leaving? I can help you with your coat," he offered. He was in such a hurry, the rushed answer came out sounding overeager. The story created itself. The sergeant who had stepped on a major's coat earlier was looking for a way to ingratiate himself.

The major frowned. "Nein," he said, taking back his coat. Newkirk looked embarrassed and ducked away. Soon, the major was distracted by his contact. Newkirk stuck around just long enough to wipe his brow as he watched the papers passed without examination, before he disappeared. Attract any more attention, and he'd be recognizable. He walked into the back again. The same man from earlier bumped into him on the way back to the kitchen, but now seeing Newkirk twice back here, suspected he had a good reason. Newkirk took a deep breath, and let it out. Now where was Carter?

He headed back to the office. It was the first door that would get him out of the hallway, and he remembered seeing doors to other rooms in it. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. The first thing his eye landed on was the desk. Cor, he'd forgotten to relock it. He pulled out his lock picks and got to work. It took longer than he wanted because it was so cheap. The tumblers were all loose and kept catching on things.

The door slammed open and something came hurdling into the room. Newkirk seized up in pure reflex, and spun around. Two somethings. One was Carter, pinned against the wall, scrambling and terrified. The other was a plump, overeager barmaid, aggressively kissing him. It was clear from the look on Carter's face that he had neither started, welcomed, nor expected this. Newkirk just stared for a moment. Then, the girl moved to his neck, and Carter spotted Newkirk.

He immediately began gesturing frantically to the door he had just flown in through, mouthing the words: "The bomb!"

Newkirk was not ready to deal with a bomb, especially the strange-looking one Carter had cooked up for this mission, which was now operating on a fuel it had not been made for. He found a way out.

He approached, tapped the girl on the shoulder, and said, "May I?" He wasn't even sure if the girl noticed the switch as he slipped into Carter's place and Carter wriggled out and ran back to the store room and his baby.

~~HH~~

Four minutes later, Carter was standing outside the back door of the hofbrau, waiting on Newkirk, his new and less destructive bomb securely tucked in his over-sized pocket. He waited nervously, smoking a cigarette to give him a reason for loitering. Newkirk had said get your oil and we'll get out of here, right? He had taken care of the plans, hadn't he? He was about to go back in to make sure nothing was wrong when the door opened and out came Newkirk with ruffled hair and a fear-filled look. He saw Carter and said, "Let's go!"

He was halfway down the alley, dragging Carter behind him when Carter said, "Wait! What about the plans?"

"The pla—" Newkirk stopped and turned. "I left me coat inside."

"They're in your coat?"

Newkirk took a deep breath, and turned bravely to face the hofbrau again. "They're in me coat. We 'ave to go back inside and get them."

He walked resolutely toward the back door, Carter catching up. "What about that girl?"

"Someone came lookin' for 'er. She might be gettin' scolded. I didn't stick around long enough to find out." He obviously did not want to say anything more, and they both crept in the back door and through the back hallway toward the front of the house. As they got to the doorway, Newkirk pulled Carter against the wall. They watched the major and the sergeant get up, shake hands, and bid each other goodnight. They watched the major put down his payment and pick up his coat. They watched the sergeant also put down his payment. Then they watched him pick up Newkirk's coat and put it on. Carter opened his mouth to protest and Newkirk covered it with his hand. They left the hofbrau.

The sergeant had taken the plans he had come for. After all of that. By an amazing feat of will, or perhaps disbelief, Newkirk held in his reaction. He removed his hand as he turned to face Carter.

"Did he just—?"

Newkirk nodded.

Silence.

"You're a good tailor, Newkirk."


	2. Chapter 2

Carter winced as Newkirk's heel dug into his shoulder. He looked up to check Newkirk's progress towards the window. It looked too far from this angle. "You sure you can make it?"

"Course I'm bloody sure. Done this plenty o' times."

"Okay..." Newkirk got both feet on Carter's shoulders and scouted out the best handholds. "But you know, I've climbed a lot of trees. If you need to, I can try."

"Carter, I told you, I've got this. Now be quiet, before someone 'ears you."

Newkirk's weight began to lift from his shoulders, and Carter was relieved. He tried to halve his volume and said, "What do we tell Colonel Hogan?"

"With any luck," Newkirk grunted as he began to pull himself up, "Hogan will never 'ear about this." He grabbed the windowsill, checked for any inhabitants of the room—none—and looked back down at Carter. "If you tell the Colonel, I'll bloody well—"

"I won't. I promise!"

"Good. And keep quiet!"

"Okay!"

Newkirk rolled his eyes and hefted himself over the windowsill, landing with less grace and subtlety than he'd have liked. That was not as easy as it used to be. But he was in the hotel.

Having no idea where the sergeant was staying, he left the large, dark room, noting its number, and went to find a maid. They were meant not to be noticed, and because of this, as Newkirk knew, those sorts tended to have a wealth and a half of information. So off he went, roaming the halls, concocting a short little story in his head (only lies have details) about having missed his fellow sergeant's room number while messing with the luggage, and could you point me in his direction? Tall fellow, light hair, sort of a sour look about him? Yes, don't tell him I said that. Thank you.

~~HH~~

Even with the instructions from the maid he eventually found, it took him fifteen minutes to locate this bloke's hotel room. (Whose idea was it to hire this architect? For that matter, who had numbered these rooms?) Finally, he arrived outside the right door and listened for a moment before opening it a crack and deeming the coast clear. He slipped in, grabbed the coat off the stand by the door, and then the sergeant walked in from a... what did you call that? A side room? What was that doing there? Newkirk changed tactics and put the coat on his arm as if it were his. "Oh, sorry, wrong room," he muttered. He left quickly, hoping the German wouldn't notice. He had to get the papers switched and return the coat later.

Two corners further on, he heard the door open. He picked up his pace and turned several more strange corners, hoping he could find his way back into the right room. 224. That was it, wasn't it? He peeked in. It was dark. He slipped inside. He was observing the _closed_ window when the light turned on. A woman screamed. Newkirk rolled his eyes as he made his hasty exit. He wasn't that frightening, was he? And why did women always scream?

And now his pursuer had a point on his location. He looked around the next corner. Oh. There was the room. He rushed into room 244 and was about to go straight for the open window when he saw Carter in the middle of the room.

"What? You—?"

"I told you I climbed a lot of trees."

"Nevermind," he said, closing the window. "I got the coat, but 'e saw me."

It was Carter's turn to be surprised. "What?"

They both froze at the sound of jogging footsteps. "In the closet." Newkirk pushed Carter in front of him. He opened the door, registered the inordinate amount of fur coats, and shoved Carter in, squishing himself in afterward and closing the door. This closet was square meters smaller than he had expected. He was amazed he had been able to shut the door.

And here they found themselves, suffocating in a too-small closet in a second floor hotel room, with a stolen coat, highly sensitive plans, a receipt for an order of ground beef, and a possibly stable homemade bomb, hiding from a Nazi sergeant whom they had accidentally given the plans to after two hours of troubleshooting to make sure he didn't get them, beginning with getting Carter a change of clothes, and ending with escaping a predatorily love-stricken barmaid.

As long as we complete the mission, Newkirk repeated to himself.

He heard the door of the room next to theirs open. Then he heard a mumble from Carter, unintelligible through the coats.

"What?"

Carter turned his head around at an awkward angle. "You got it?"

"Yes. But I also 'ave 'is coat, and now 'e's after the thief."

"You could just give him back his coat."

"Are you daft? 'I accidentally walked into your room and stole your coat. Here, you can have it back now. Top secret correspondence? No, I haven't seen any of those recently.'"

"I guess. And we can't make the switch anymore because he'll check his pockets."

"We can, if we can keep him from informing anyone. They'll just suspect the Underground."

"Which they do already because he saw you steal his coat."

"Righ'. We just need to get out of 'ere and keep him from making 'is transmission."

Newkirk was getting unbearably hot. He was wearing a coat, holding a coat, surrounded by coats, and practically hugging Carter, who was also wearing a coat. It didn't help his nerves.

"Use my bomb," Carter said.

"What?"

"Throw it into the room."

"Will it kill 'im?"

"I don't know."

"Will it kill _us_?"

"I don't know."

"You're just full of answers, aren't you?"

"It shouldn't. Cooking oil isn't real volatile."

Newkirk had a picture in his head of LeBeau's last dish en flambé. He did not like the look of it. Then he heard the door to their room open. They didn't have long before he checked the closet.

"Quiet," Newkirk hissed under his breath, though he doubted they could be heard through a dozen layers of mink. "'e's in the room. An' I don't like that idea."

"Do you have another?"

"No." He heaved a sigh. A quiet sigh. "Hand 'em to me, I'll throw 'em in the room."

"Um. I can't move."

"At all?"

"At all."

He huffed. "If your bombs don't kill me first, Carter, I'm goin' to kill you someday."

He wedged his elbow around and eventually slipped his hand into Carter's capacious pocket. He started feeling around. What manner of—

He couldn't recognize half of the things in the pocket, which slightly alarmed him. Best check this was the right pocket before he tripped a trigger and blew them both up.

"Where did you say that was?"

"Front pocket."

"Right." He shifted around, feeling deeper.

"Careful, Newkirk."

"I ruddy am!" He shifted again, pressing Carter further into the back wall.

"That stuff's not exactly stable," he mumbled into the coats.

"Buzz off... Where in your front pocket exactly?"

"Further back."

"—Got it." He thought of something else. "Smoke bomb?"

Carter shoved one into his hand.

"How—?"

"Throw 'em!" Carter said.

Newkirk elbowed the closet door open, spun around to see the sergeant thankfully not looking at them, and said a prayer, hurling both bombs across the room.

They exploded on impact. A loud _bang_ set the corner aflame and removed a decent section of the floor. Smoke filled the room in no time. Newkirk let Carter out, whispering to him, "Sound the alarm. It'll slow 'im down."

As Carter went to the door to start yelling "Fire!" Newkirk grabbed both papers from the coats and dropped the sergeant's coat on the ground. Then, an idea struck him. He carefully made sure he chose the right paper, and threw it into the fire.

The sergeant had started yelling fire as well, and they heard him stumbling in the direction of the door.

He and Carter reached the window at the same time, opening it wide and looking down at the two story drop. They pulled their heads back in.

"Do we have to climb?" whispered Carter.

"Ladies first," gestured Newkirk, following it closely with, "DON'T argue."

Carter, wisely, obeyed. Newkirk got Carter over the sill, and tried to look around, but his eyes were stinging too much. It was so hot in here. Oh, wait.

He ran back to where he judged the closet was, missing it only by a few feet, and, stretching his arms wide, grabbed every coat at once. He hefted them off the clothes rack, nearly falling under their weight, and struggled across the room, back to the window.

"Look out!" he called, and, hoping Carter had heard him, dumped the pile of furs out the window. They landed with a _whumph_ and a cloud of dust.

Carter, halfway down, didn't hesitate to let go and drop into them. Then he scrambled out and called up, "It's soft!"

Newkirk took a breath, recalled a lesson on landing he hadn't needed for some years, and jumped. The landing knocked the wind out of him, but once he could breathe again and felt no broken bones, he congratulated himself.

Carter offered him a hand. "That was a great idea!" he giggled. "Can we do it again?"

Newkirk shook his head. "You got us into this ruddy mess."

Carter's whole countenance changed. "Did not!"

They were reminded of their situation when they heard "Feuer! Feuer!" from above. Carter started to run for the edge of town, but Newkirk caught his arm.

"Stop, wait! Only the guilty run from the scene. Don't you know that?" Carter looked confused.

"But we _are_ guilty," he stressed, in all honesty.

Newkirk ignored him. "Come on, we can still disable 'is car." He led the way around the building to where they'd seen the car park. There was no one around. The explosion may have had something to do with that. "Let's get to work," Newkirk said, lifting the hood. They set about making the slight adjustments that would make whatever happened under the hood when the car started look like the result of wear and tear. While Carter leaned further into the engine, Newkirk decided to let the air out of one tire for good measure. He removed his pen from his pocket and was about to bend down when he saw a soldier's uniform in his periphery. He put the pen back in his pocket.

"What do you mean, it won't start? I want this car ready in fifteen minutes!"

Carter, not having heard him, backed out of the engine and hit his head on the hood. "What?" he asked, rubbing his head. Newkirk was grateful that that particular word could pass for German if one wasn't expecting to hear English.

"I _said_," Newkirk pointed with his eyes at the soldier passing them. "I want this car ready in fifteen minutes!"

"Oh, jawohl, herr sergeant," Carter replied in German. He got back under the hood. Newkirk made sure the man had passed, then got his pen back out and went to work on the tire.

~~HH~~

If there had been anyone in the woods just north of Hammelburg, at 10:53 that night, around the location of the twin oak trees, they may have heard the following:

"I am _not_ gettin' cooler time for this one. You are."

"It wasn't my fault!"

"Who spilled the fuel out of their bomb?"

"Me. ...Wait but that doesn't mean it's my fault you left the paper in your coat!"

"You broke the camera, Andrew."

"You got caught stealing the sergeant's coat back!"

"Which I wouldn't have had to do if you were in the hofbrau and made sure he got the right coat instead of waiting out back."

"I was waiting on you! You took forever with that girl."

There was an audible shudder and then a brief silence. "Don't speak of that incident ever again. That was in the line of duty, and deeply traumatic. And I saved _you_ from it."

"Oh come on! I didn't ask for it!"

"Right, it's not your fault you're just so bloody attractive. What in the world 'appened?"

Now the second voice clammed up. "I'm not telling."

"Oh, really?" The voices drifted away.

And if Schultz had been awake at his post on the fence that night he may have heard whispered in the bushes next to that old tree stump:

"We are not telling the Colonel, an' I don't care if it's against some kind o' law. We're makin' up a story."

"Will he believe it?"

"Probably not, but we're making it up all the same."

~~HH~~

Sgt. Lehmann was having a very bad night. A thief had stolen his coat, along with the correspondence in it, and had dropped it on his way out the window. He had entered the room the thief had escaped from just as a gas leak exploded. In the aftermath, after putting out the fire and dealing with a very angry hotel manager, who had thought this was somehow his fault, he had discovered next to his coat a black piece of ash that was holding the shape of a folded piece of paper. His orders. He touched it and it disintegrated. He hadn't had time to decode them, and he didn't have time to get a new copy before the planes were sent out. They would have to abort the mission. Putting it off wouldn't work. It was time sensitive. And he would have alerted his superiors, but when he had tried to get in his car it had almost fallen apart. And he would just call and report it, but... even if they did believe him, all of the blame for ruining a very high-priority mission would come back on him and the _best_ he could hope for was a demotion and a one way ticket to the Eastern front. Right now would be a good time to escape Germany. He had some information to trade. If he could just contact the Underground and quietly hop on a sub to England...

~~HH~~

Hogan looked at the slightly crumpled paper in his hand, then up at his two men standing in front of him. Neither of them said anything. He took in their smoky, greasy, oily, frazzled appearance for another moment, then realized one of them was not in the clothing he'd sent him out wearing. Newkirk coughed into his hand. But they weren't injured. That was good.

"One transport location, as ordered, sir."

His mind was still blank. The silence must have made them uncomfortable.

"Just, ah, run it through the codebook," said Newkirk. Carter gave a weak smile.

"Why..." Hogan croaked out.

"Um, the bloke was in a car accident on the way back, and we nicked the plans, and...'e's not goin' anywhere soon."

Hogan looked closer at them. Was that... "Lipstick?"

Carter's ears turned red. Newkirk responded.

"I... saved a maiden in distress."

Hogan's gaze lingered on Carter's face. He noticed. "Yeah, me too. The other car in the accident had a girl- uh, two girls in it, and we- we got them out."

Hogan's eyebrows drew down in confusion. That wasn't the truth, but he was almost afraid to ask. He saw Newkirk staring pointedly at the paper in his hand.

He tried to take command again. "Um, you two... clean up. I'll decode this for Kinch." Despite the strange scene in front of him, he still had a job to do, so right now he was just going to forget about it. As Newkirk said, they _had_ completed the mission, and really that was all that mattered.

He still made a mental note to catch Carter alone later and get the real story out of him, even if it came out confused, in the wrong order, and with tangents galore.


End file.
